Melissa James is an alumna of the programme PhD in Higher Education: Research, Evaluation and Enhancement at Lancaster University, and a Director of the Undergraduate Programs of the Faculty of Business, University of Prince Edward Island. Her research explores how practitioners (or staff) of international student recruitment at higher education institutions perceive their institutional strategic plans. It examines their perceptions of strategic plans on their practice and how it shapes their work. It is an international comparison of three institutions - one in Hong Kong, one in the UK and one in Canada. This international comparison helps to understand similarities and differences in international student recruitment, and the study shows that institutional culture is critically important to understanding how strategic plans influence the practice of international student recruitment.  Melissa can be contacted about her research via [email protected]. Talking to her is Olga Rotar, doctoral researcher and a member of CHERE@LU.